Main Beach Flower Delivery Today, Up to the Unit

Mum's turning eighty in her unit on Main Beach Parade, and you're a long way off, which never really gets easier. The building name, unit number and a mobile go into the notes (one that actually gets answered), because in our experience, where there's no concierge, the intercom downstairs is the only way up. We learned that carrying bunches into Gold Coast towers ourselves in 2007 and 2008. Start with our 80th birthday flowers.

Pick an arrangement in its own vase. The stems are already sitting in water when it's handed over, so it goes straight onto the kitchen bench. A wrapped bunch can sit in its paper a good while as someone hunts for a vase.

You've booked them a weekend away and you'd love flowers to turn up while they're there. For The Imperial or the Sheraton Grand Mirage, the name the room is booked under goes in the notes (yours, if you made the booking), and from what we've seen reception signs and either sends them up or holds them at the desk until they're back. Andrew found out how seriously those hotels take a delivery in 2008, walking a bunch into Palazzo Versace (as it was then) in his work shorts, when the doorman asked if he'd like the shop van valet parked. He said he'd be thirty seconds. They parked it anyway, and I still bring it up. Start with our anniversary flowers.

Anna's pick: roses. In a beachfront suite they hold beautifully on a desk away from the balcony door, out of the breeze coming off the sand.

Someone's had a fall or a procedure, the news came by text, and you're not sure yet how bad it is. Gold Coast University Hospital and Mater Private Hospital Gold Coast (the old Gold Coast Private) sit side by side in Southport, so the notes need the hospital, the ward and the patient's full name; from there, in our experience, ward staff carry it in. Already home? Send get well flowers to their place instead.

Anna, on a shared room

The florists I worked with always assumed a ward room was shared, because perfume builds as the room warms up and the bed beside gets it too. 3 Gerberas In A Vase carry the colour with no scent at all, and there are more like them among the hospital flowers.

Plenty of orders don't fit a heading (the just-because ones are my favourite), and that's fine. Anna has a pick for here.

The Australian Native Arrangement. Natives tend to have tough, leathery leaves and waxy flower heads the salt barely gets a grip on, and an arrangement sits in water or wet foam from the moment it's built, so it holds up in a unit, a suite or on a ward desk. Have a look through the native flowers too.